Peter Scott, show me any official definition for 'homemade yeast'NY-Style Pizza in any dictionary or encyclopedia, abridged, unabridged, whatever. You can't, because one does not exist. A term cannot misrepresent a business entity if it possesses no universally agreed upon meaning.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

Nino talks about spending 'a lot of time making my own mozzarella,' and, only a few seconds later, talks about buying grande curd.

When I first noticed how many restaurants remarked that they made their own mozerella, I was quite surprised because not knowing any better, I assumed from scratch. When I learned what 99.999% of them meant by that, I thought it was a cheesy. But as I learned more, I realized it did have meaning, and that, if they do a good job, you will get a better product. I "made mozzarella" with Josh (Pieous) at Tom's house and here at my house with Chau, and there is no doubt whatsoever that I can't buy cheese that good in Houston. I wish it wasn't such a pain for me to buy curd. Turning curd into mozzarella can fairly be called making mozzarella or homemade mozzarella, and as I've learned, it's very common to do so. How you think this is comparable to calling baker's yeast "homemade," I'm not getting however. Unlike "homemade mozerella," it's certainly not common to do so.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

we talked to Coniglio and quickly learned he's a meticulous, passionate, pizza-obsessive, and a little nutty in the way all great NYC pie-men are. He talked to Kenji about growing his own wheat and milling his own flour on two acres of land he bought in the Poconos. While we were not convinced his wheat knowledge equalled his pizza smarts

Quote

Translation: he enjoys taking some creative license.

Let me give you an alternate translation: "anyone crazy enough to grow his own wheat for pizza might try SD in NY-style."

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

Peter, show me any official definition for 'homemade yeast' in any dictionary or encyclopedia, abridged, unabridged, whatever. You can't, because one does not exist.

Scott,

I knew at the outset that I was unlikely to find an official definition of the expression "homemade yeast". The expression "homemade yeast" simply sounded too "homemade" to me, and not a name that someone like Didier Rosada or Prof. Calvel would have selected. I did the search simply to see what was out there. As it turns out, the search turned up the second article that made reference to the "homemade yeast". So, now we have two articles and two telephone conversations with Norma in which Williamsburg Pizza says that they are using "homemade yeast". What they call it is immaterial to me. What is important is what the homemade yeast is made of. And, for now, I am willing to accept as true that Williamsburg Pizza is using a homemade yeast, however constituted. If Norma or I or anyone else is unable to identify the components of the homemade yeast, I for one will fold my tent and go back home, and you will be able to rest on your laurels because no one was able to show that there is a NY style pizza operator out there using sourdough or whatever else might be in the homemade yeast. It will not be the first time I have terminated a reverse engineering project. I have done that more than once when I have run out of solid data and hard facts. I believe that I am knowledgeable and creative enough to come up with plausible explanations as to what Williamsburg Pizza might be doing, but that is not how I operate.

I also want you to know that I am not pursuing this line of inquiry solely to demonstrate that there is a NY style pizza operator out there using a sourdough starter or something else. As I was researching the matter, it occurred to me that Williamsburg Pizza might be using a combination of a natural starter and commercial yeast such as Norma tested yesterday. And with the reputation that Williamsburg Pizza has earned for its pizzas, maybe Norma would like to take a stab at coming up with a clone of the Williamsburg Pizza.

Tom sent me an email today, saying 2 of his dough balls made with the KA sourdough starter and IDY will arrive at market tomorrow, no later than 10:30 AM. Tom sent the dough balls standard overnight today. It will be interesting to see how his dough balls perform tomorrow. Tom used the GM Full Strength flour, but used a different formula than I did. Tom asked me what percentages I use for my normal market doughs.

Your thread (and the related ones) caused me to make a dough with both SD and IDY, which I have not made in a few months. The two dough balls are in the fridge and I will bake them in the next couple of days. You may be interested in this thread (I am linking you to reply 19 in which I started asking questions):

Your thread (and the related ones) caused me to make a dough with both SD and IDY, which I have not made in a few months. The two dough balls are in the fridge and I will bake them in the next couple of days. You may be interested in this thread (I am linking you to reply 19 in which I started asking questions):

Hmm, I do not know why you could not see the link. Oh well, the important thing is the last few entries in the thread, so you are fine. -- Mitch

Mitch,

It does not show up on your post now, and it still looks like the first part of your link https, but I modified that link and it removed the s part. It might sound confusing but at least it works. Did I confuse you more.

I think I got it. Both worked for me, but the one with the "s" did flash a lot on my screen before settling down. I do not even know how that got there in the first place. I will watch for that going forward. Thanks!

I think I got it. Both worked for me, but the one with the "s" did flash a lot on my screen before settling down. I do not even know how that got there in the first place. I will watch for that going forward. Thanks!

Mitch,

The second link when I click on it says this. “SSL Error The site's security certificate is not trusted!” It might be the settings on my computer that does that.

Tom's package of dough balls arrived around 9:30 AM yesterday morning. Tom sure had the dough balls package well, and all of the dough balls were still really cold. Tom sent me two KA starter IDY NY style dough balls and one Neapolitan dough ball. I put all of the dough balls in the prep fridge. The one KA starter IDY dough ball was warm-up for 1 ˝ hrs. before it was opened in the afternoon. The dough ball was sticky when I took it out of the plastic bag and some of the dough stuck to my fingers. The dough ball was floured. The dough ball started to open normally but the dough did not feel like it had much of any elasticity. The skin then started to tear in some places and I could not get the skin round. I decided before I mess around, and ruin the skin some more from trying to open it, I would dress it. I pinched the tears in the skin the best as I could. I could almost feel from the dough the pizza would not have much of any oven spring on the rim crust.

Tom's KA starter and IDY pizza baked okay. The taste of the crust was somewhat bland and the rim crust was a little bready tasting. I had my taste testers taste some slices.

Tom told me he cold fermented the dough balls for 48 hrs. before freezing them to get them ready to shop. He did say he lightly oiled the dough balls. Tom used 20% of the KA starter in the formula, along with my regular percentages. I think he used 0.30% IDY. I did not tell Tom what TF I use or what pizza size I use.

I am wondering what could have been wrong with the dough, or my methods in trying to open the dough ball. I sent Tom an email last evening about the results.

I had thought that the yeast in the dough ball, or the KA starter might have been damaged in the freezing of the dough ball, but I am not too sure now. I brought Tom's two extra dough balls home last evening and place them in my home fridge. This morning the KA sourdough starter IDY dough ball has fermented a lot more than when it was at market yesterday.

Does anyone know if Tom's mixing technique might have not been right, or have any other opinions on what was going on with Tom's dough ball? I kind of have my theories of what have might been going on but really am not sure about that. Tom is also interested in knowing what went wrong. He told me last evening that he also has problems with his KA starter IDY dough balls when trying to open them into skins and then the skin wants to tear.

The last photo is of Tom's dough balls this morning. I would have tried Tom's other KA starter IDY dough ball but was too busy to try it.

Hi Norma,20% seems high on the preferment ... is that because it was cold fermented and did you request that it be cold fermented? Is there an advantage to CF over room temp other than perhaps convenience? Still trying to understand if one form of fermentation is "better" than the other if convenience isn't an issue.Thanks,Jeff

Hi Norma,20% seems high on the preferment ... is that because it was cold fermented and did you request that it be cold fermented? Is there an advantage to CF over room temp other than perhaps convenience? Still trying to understand if one form of fermentation is "better" than the other if convenience isn't an issue.Thanks,Jeff

You should try both for yourself and decide.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

I am doing my second round of room temp as we speak (first round was too rough to use as a reference), although it has SD too so there are a lot of new variables to my old IDY/CF pizza. I just wasn't sure if there was a general consensus. I will let my own taste buds decide

Hi Norma,20% seems high on the preferment ... is that because it was cold fermented and did you request that it be cold fermented? Is there an advantage to CF over room temp other than perhaps convenience? Still trying to understand if one form of fermentation is "better" than the other if convenience isn't an issue.Thanks,Jeff

Josh,

I was not the one that suggested for Tom to use 20% of the KA sourdough starter when he used my market formula percentages. I left the preferment amount up to Tom. I hope Tom posts exactly what he did, and how he mixed those dough balls.

I really don't know is there is an advantage to CF over room temperature ferment.

I wanted to give background on how I created the dough balls that I sent to Norma. I have been using this method for 2 years on my Chicago thin/cracker thin recipes and it added a tremendous amount of flavor, but that is a rolling pin method which is highly forgiving. This was going to be a check to see how it translates to the NY style.

Somewhere in my early reading I saw somebody using 20% so that was my beginning point and where I have kept it the last 2 years. I always combined it with 0.2% IDY and did a multi-day cold ferment for my thin crusts with the purpose to allow for maximum flexibility for time management. It was very easy and convenient and it worked well for those thin crusts with a rolling pin.

I normally feed and maintain the starter with Ceresota AP. For the dough balls I sent to Norma, I fed the starter the night before with GM Full Strength so the starter mixture that went into the dough was 67% GM FS and 33% Ceresota AP

The dough balls were made with GM Full Strength, 20% starter, and 61% hydration, and 0.3% IDY, 1.75% oil, 1.75% salt and 0.8% sugar. I mixed in a Bosch compact for approximately 2 minutes at the lowest speed, added oil and then mixed for another 4 minutes at the lowest speed, repositioning a couple of times when the dough started to ride up the hook. I used refrigerated bottled water.

I balled and did a two day cold ferment (as I always did with my thin crust pizzas), and then added a light brush of vegetable oil prior to bagging and freezing. I then shipped the balls to Norma for overnight delivery.

As Norma mentioned I have been experiencing a lot of tearing when I open the balls and unfortunately she experienced the same.

Does anyone know if Tom's mixing technique might have not been right, or have any other opinions on what was going on with Tom's dough ball? I kind of have my theories of what have might been going on but really am not sure about that. Tom is also interested in knowing what went wrong. He told me last evening that he also has problems with his KA starter IDY dough balls when trying to open them into skins and then the skin wants to tear.

Norma,

That is a tough one. The reason I say that is because, as far as I can recall, we have had little experience on the forum with freezing dough that is based on using a natural leavening agent. As you know, regular fresh dough can be frozen, either at the outset or after a period of cold fermentation, but the amounts of yeast has to be consistent with the duration of cold fermentation in each of those two cases. I would imagine that similar measures have to be taken when using a naturally leavened dough, either alone or in combination with commercial yeast. To cite an example, look at Pete Taylor's Raquel formulation as set forth at Reply 24 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=1258.msg11359;topicseen#msg11359. You will note that the preferment, which was based on Jeff Varasano's starter, is only 8% (of the total formula flour), and that the IDY is only a pinch, or 0.0625%. Those numbers are for a dough that is to be cold fermented for 24+ hours. To go to a frozen dough, one presumably would have to increase either the amount of natural preferment or the commercial yeast, or possibly both. The question is how much? Remember, also, that the natural preferment and the commercial yeast will both contribute to the fermentation of the dough. If the combined amount of the natural preferment and commercial yeast is too much, and/or the fermentation times are too long, it seems to me that the dough can overferment. Whether that is what happened in your case is hard to say. We just don't have enough experience on this matter to say. In fact, the notion of using a natural starter, which dates back thousands of years before commercial yeast was available and before refrigeration was invented, is antithetical to the notion of freezing dough, or even refrigerating it (although it was inevitable that such a dough would eventually be refrigerated).

Peter,I do want to clarify that I experienced the same opening problems as Norma did even on 2-day CF even with no freezing. I don't want the focus to drift over to freezing. It might be part of the equation, but I have experienced this same difficultly with cold ferment only.

I froze the dough I sent to Norma in this case due to my being out of town prior to Monday overnight shipment.

I wanted to give background on how I created the dough balls that I sent to Norma. I have been using this method for 2 years on my Chicago thin/cracker thin recipes and it added a tremendous amount of flavor, but that is a rolling pin method which is highly forgiving. This was going to be a check to see how it translates to the NY style.

Somewhere in my early reading I saw somebody using 20% so that was my beginning point and where I have kept it the last 2 years. I always combined it with 0.2% IDY and did a multi-day cold ferment for my thin crusts with the purpose to allow for maximum flexibility for time management. It was very easy and convenient and it worked well for those thin crusts with a rolling pin.

I normally feed and maintain the starter with Ceresota AP. For the dough balls I sent to Norma, I fed the starter the night before with GM Full Strength so the starter mixture that went into the dough was 67% GM FS and 33% Ceresota AP

The dough balls were made with GM Full Strength, 20% starter, and 61% hydration, and 0.3% IDY, 1.75% oil, 1.75% salt and 0.8% sugar. I mixed in a Bosch compact for approximately 2 minutes at the lowest speed, added oil and then mixed for another 4 minutes at the lowest speed, repositioning a couple of times when the dough started to ride up the hook. I used refrigerated bottled water.

I balled and did a two day cold ferment (as I always did with my thin crust pizzas), and then added a light brush of vegetable oil prior to bagging and freezing. I then shipped the balls to Norma for overnight delivery.

As Norma mentioned I have been experiencing a lot of tearing when I open the balls and unfortunately she experienced the same.

Tom

Thank you Tom for posting how you created the dough balls you sent me, and how you have been using your method for your Chicago thin/cracker recipes. I appreciate the details.

I think you told me in an email that you kept a dough ball and then froze it too. I would be interested in seeing how your frozen dough ball turns out when you try to open the dough ball.

I just took your other dough ball out of the fridge. The dough feels pasty/slack, although it looks well fermented. As can be seen the dough quickly want to tear when I went to stretch it a little. I never saw that before in any of my frozen doughs. Your dough ball did not stick to the plastic bag today while the dough is cold. I am trying to figure out how all of what you did might have made any differences or not. Maybe you might want to post what type of Bosch you are using to mix your dough.

The NP dough does not look like it has fermented more at all. I did not try to feel it though.